What sustains flawed indicators? Unpacking the EU's administrative burden agenda

Abstract

Von der Leyen’s second Commission made reducing firm-level administrative burdens its signature agenda for the European Union (EU). Our analysis showcases how this policy agenda emerged, tracing the dubious methodologies in estimating the costs of administrative burdens, and establishing a novel opening for the “politics of indicators” scholarship. We highlight how the impact of composite indices, such as the administrative burden measurements, can depend on poorly understudied factors that can be external/internal to the issuing organization of an indicator. External factors concern the influence of symmetric countervailing powers (or their absence) in debunking problematic indices. The lower the capabilities collectively possessed by relevant “watchdog institutions,” the more likely methodologically questionable indicators prevail–as occurred with the administrative burden agenda. Internal factors relate to the robustness of an issuing organization’s methodological standards for indicators and the underlying issue complexity/simplicity. We demonstrate how the lack of symmetric opposition propelled the administrative burden agenda, which continues to shape policy within the EU, as well as in the advisory frameworks of the OECD and the World Bank. We underscore how numerical data “travels” between policy domains and agendas, apparent in the convergence of policy scripts on evidence-based policy and administrative burdens in the EU.